Birth Is Ancient

Up bright and early reviewing my notes for today’s presentation! ✨📚 I may even have just enough time to squeeze in another chapter of my midwifery skills book before the day gets started.

Student. Speaker. Always learning. 💛

I’m excited to share my insights today, connect with others doing this work, and most importantly, represent DETROIT! 🖤🙌🏾

Let’s go! 🎤✨

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I looked at them through the glass, but I could feel the metal in my hands.

These aren’t unfamiliar instruments to me.

I have stood in operating rooms. I have placed instruments into physicians’ hands. And every time I hear the word “Sims,” something in me aches.

Because I know the history behind the name.

I think about the wombs of enslaved Black women.
The bodies experimented on.
The pain endured without anesthesia.
The suffering turned into medical knowledge while the women who suffered were too often pushed to the margins of the story.

Standing here, I didn’t just see the history of gynecology.

I felt its weight.

I cried for the wombs of the enslaved.

For Anarcha.
For Lucy.
For Betsey.
And for the women whose names we will never know.

There is something difficult about working in maternal healthcare and realizing that instruments you know by sight, by name, and by touch carry histories that were never taught to you when you learned how to use them.

So when someone asks me to hand them a Sims, it is never just an instrument to me.

The name burns a little differently now.

And as I continue my journey into midwifery, I carry both things with me: the science I have been taught and the history I refuse to forget.

I honor the wombs that endured.
I honor the women whose bodies were used.
I honor the knowledge that existed in Black hands long before medicine decided whose knowledge counted.

May we practice differently because we remember. 🤎

I knew she was a midwife. That’s why I stopped. 🤎

Standing in the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum looking at the only known image of Aimée Potens, a Black midwife born in New Orleans in 1792, felt sacred.

I looked at her face, her hands, her tignon, and thought about how many women she cared for. How many babies she welcomed. How much knowledge lived in those hands that could never be fully captured in a museum exhibit.

As a Black woman beginning my own journey into midwifery, moments like this mean something different to me now.

I am learning skills that feel new to me, but they are not new to us.

Black midwives have always been here.

Catching babies.
Caring for mothers.
Passing down knowledge.
Serving communities.
Preserving life.

So this isn’t simply a picture from a museum.

It’s me stopping to honor Midwife Aimée Potens and one of the women whose footsteps existed long before mine.

I am not beginning something new. I am continuing something ancient.

May I carry it well. 🤎

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I took this picture because the courtyard was beautiful. Then I learned its history.

Behind this beauty once stood the living and working quarters of enslaved people whose labor and knowledge helped sustain this property.

Then I walked upstairs and found the midwifery exhibit.

As a Black woman beginning my own journey into midwifery, I couldn’t separate those two experiences, the beauty, the history, the people whose names and stories are still being recovered, and the generations of knowledge that existed long before professional titles and licenses recognized it.

I came here expecting to learn about medicine. I left thinking about whose knowledge gets remembered, whose labor gets credited, and whose stories we have to intentionally go back and recover.

This trip keeps giving me something to sit with. 🤎

First day at the ROSE Conference 🌹✨ and I’m taking it all in.

This is my first time here, and we look BEAUTIFUL. The colors, the African fabrics, the culture, the energy, it feels good to be surrounded by people who are passionate about our families and our communities. 🖤

Tomorrow is my poster presentation, and I’m nervous AND excited. But today, I’m reminding myself of something important:

I’m a student no matter where I am. 📚

Studying before sessions. Studying between sessions. Studying on breaks. Even trying out this Pomodoro method because apparently I have to learn how to study smarter, not just harder. 😂

I’m learning that becoming a midwife isn’t something that only happens in a classroom. I’m building this journey in airports, hotels, conferences, coffee shops, client visits, and every little pocket of time I can find.

Today I get to learn.
Tomorrow I get to present.
And through it all, I keep becoming. 🌱

Where Ancient Wisdom Meets the Art and Science of Midwifery. 🌿

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Tonight, one piece of advice from Tanya Taiwo stayed with me:

Learn your craft.

She talked about the Grand Midwives, women who could spend 10 years learning, practicing, observing, serving and becoming deeply rooted in their craft.

My midwifery program is three years.

Three years.

When I think about it that way, three years doesn’t feel so long anymore.

And then came the part I really needed to hear: let the other people do the other work.

Whew.

Because I am always thinking about what needs to be built, changed, fixed, funded, taught or advocated for.

But everything doesn’t have to be my assignment right now.

There are people doing the advocacy.
People building organizations.
People changing policy.
People raising money.
People carrying other pieces of this movement.

My assignment in this season can simply be:

Learn my craft.

Study.
Practice.
Listen.
Be teachable.
Become excellent.
And get to the finish line.

The Grand Midwives gave years to mastering this work.

I can give three.

And maybe part of becoming the midwife I’m called to be is learning that I don’t have to do everything at once.

Let the other people do the other work.
Nyasia, learn your craft.

BirthWork DeliverUs

Super excited! 🖤🤱🏾✨

There’s no better way to spend the first evening of Black Breastfeeding Week than watching Deliver Us—a film centered on Black birth, breastfeeding, community, and the people doing the work.

As an IBCLC, birth worker, and future midwife, these conversations always remind me why this work matters. Black families deserve to be seen, heard, protected, informed, and supported throughout pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, and beyond.

Tonight I’m not working. I’m not presenting. I’m simply sitting in community, learning, listening, and filling my cup. 🖤

What a beautiful way to begin Black Breastfeeding Week 2026.

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Detroit Breastfeeds.

Black breastfeeding has always been about more than milk. It is community, culture, resilience, knowledge, advocacy, and collective care.

This Black Breastfeeding Week, we honor the Black mothers and birthing families who choose to breastfeed, chestfeed, pump, combination feed, relactate, or simply try. We honor the grandmothers, aunties, partners, doulas, midwives, lactation professionals, and community members who make sure families don’t have to do it alone.

We All We Got: 15 Years of Community, Care, and Collective Power.

And here in Detroit, we’re continuing that legacy, one family, one feeding, and one village at a time.

🧡 Detroit Breastfeeds.
💙 Detroit Supports.
🧡 Detroit Nourishes.

Happy Black Breastfeeding Week! ✊🏾🤱🏾

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Feedback on one of my first midwifery school assignments: OUTSTANDING! 🥹✨

That feels amazing today.

Even more importantly, I created my first real study system one designed around how I actually learn. I identified what I need to change to make my study space optimal for my success, created a routine, and now I’m going to put it into practice and see how it goes.

I’m learning midwifery, but I’m also learning how to be a student again. 📚🤎

One assignment at a time. One system at a time. One step closer to becoming a midwife. 🫶🏾